Johnny Depp’s second movie as a director is looking at the life of Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian painter. Here’s all you need to know about the artist in focus.
Who was Amedeo Modigliani?
Amedeo Modigliani is the focus of Johnny Depp’s new movie, 25 years following his debut as a director. It is an adaptation of “Modigliani,” a play by Dennis McIntyre. It is co-produced with Barry Nacidi and Al Pacino. “The saga of Mr. Modigliani’s life is one that I’m incredibly honored and truly humbled, to bring to the screen. It was a life of great hardship, but eventual triumph — a universally human story all viewers can identify with,” stated Depp.
Modigliani’s 1917 exhibition in Paris was termed indecent and scandalous for featuring nudes. Hoards of people gathered outside to view his work but the police demanded the removal of the show due to obscenity. However, over a century later, in 2018, one of these paintings featuring a reclining woman sold for over $157 million at Sotheby’s auction. At the time, it was the highest ever price achieved for an artwork at Sotheby’s.
Modigliani was a painter and sculptor, who worked in Paris. He is considered one of the greatest figurative artists of the early 20th century. Best known for his distinctive nudes and portraits with slender necks, elongated bodies, and oval faces with almond-shaped eyes. Between 1909 and 1914, he mainly focused on sculptures, directly carving stone and mainly using limestone.
More on the artist’s life
Amedeo Modigliani was born in 1884 to a intelectual jewish family in Livorno, Italy. His remarkable but short light was swarming with ill-health. At the young age of 11, he developed pleurisy. The condition causes lung inflammation of lung tissue making it painful to breathe. He contracted typhoid a few years later and pleurisy made a return when he was 16. He later caught tuberculosis which eventually led to his death at the age of 35. Despite being in bed, sick with typhoid, he requested his mother to take him to Florence to see the Renaissance palace of Palazzo Pitti and look at paintings at the Uffizi Gallery art museum.
His mother was a huge support of his interest in art and literature. She enrolled him in art lessons with Guglielmo Micheli. Under Micheli, Amedeo Modigliani trained in still life, portraitures, nude paintings, and landscape. His mother also took him across Europe to look at the works of masters. In 1906 he left for Paris and made contact with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Andre Derain, and Giorgio de Chirico. He also met Paul Alexandre, his future patron, and Constantin Brancusi, a sculptor who heavily influenced Modigilani’s sculptures.